The Pre-hospital Care Course

Formerly the Helicopter Crew Course, this course is required for all new team members at London’s Air Ambulance, and open to a limited number of additional candidates who are nominated by the clinical leads of various services with which we are connected in the UK and abroad. It is held three times a year for approximately 14 candidates – a mixture of doctors and paramedics. It is not available for open enrolment at this time.

The principles of delivery for this course were developed by Dr Gareth Davies, Medical Director of London’s Air Ambulance; and our colleagues at the Great North Air Ambulance in 2006. The medical content has advanced continually since the course’s early days, reflecting key innovations in care, and expanding to include the core topics relevant for the education of new doctors and paramedics in physician led pre-hospital systems.

Today, the course is an intense, seven-day journey through the various aspects of pre-hospital trauma and medical care. There is an important practical element, and an examination on day seven. The course requires a large number of faculty, who are always experienced doctors and paramedics from the London’s Air Ambulance team.

Since inception of the course, we’ve trained approximately 300 doctors and paramedics from pre-hospital services in England, from the U.K. Military (nominated through their chain of command), and from equivalent services in Scotland, Wales, Australia, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Hungary, and Iceland.

London’s Air Ambulance is the charity that delivers an advanced trauma team to critically injured people in London, providing life-saving medical interventions such as open chest surgery, blood transfusion, and anaesthesia at the roadside.